On Nov. 26, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro handed over leadership of the national oil company, PDVSA, to Manuel Quevedo, a general with no experience in the energy sector. The move comes after a series of arrests of officials within PDVSA on corruption charges, including six earlier in November. In an email interview, David Smilde, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America and curator of the blog Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights, discusses Maduro’s underlying political motivations for the moves and the military’s increasing control of Venezuela’s economy. WPR: Maduro has arrested around 50 PDVSA officials since August, [...]
This week, many Americans savor the seasonal culinary delights of Thanksgiving, while around the world, food insecurity is on the rise, particularly in places suffering from conflict or acute climate disruptions. The Saudi-led blockade of Yemen is being investigated by the United Nations as a war crime. Across the globe in Puerto Rico, it took a celebrity chef, Jose Andres, to help respond to critical food needs after Hurricane Maria, cooking whatever was available locally for a population without electricity or sufficient support from the U.S. government. The implications for policymakers cover a gamut of issues around food security, from [...]
Bolivian President Evo Morales is forging ahead with a plan to get around constitutional limits to stand for a fourth term in 2019, despite losing a February 2016 referendum on whether he could run again. His party, the Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, presented a petition to Bolivia’s elected constitutional tribunal in late September requesting that four articles of the country’s constitution be declared “inapplicable,” allowing Morales to stand for president indefinitely. The MAS also wants the court to scrap term limits for other elected officials, including governors, mayors and members of the Plurinational Legislative Assembly, Bolivia’s legislature. A decision [...]
